Lynn, Morrison, Ryan, Falvey and Levine

[gunnarthor]

 

Cutting dead weight seemed to be a painful exercise for TR, one to be avoided or put off until tomorrow. But what about this.... How about during the Ryan rebuilding phase of just ONE trade in moving a significant veteran at peak value?

 

Major aspect of failure during the previous regime that would have accelerated the Twins much sooner out of this (mostly) lost decade.

If you're talking about his second term with us, the only big pieces Ryan had were Span (traded for Meyer), possibly Perkins (signed team friendly deal instead) and maybe Dozier after 2014 season? He didn't have a Shark to trade. He moved pretty much every single vet.

 

If you're talking about his initial run, he made lots of moves like that (or kept the player for draft comps). 

 

And I think you're a bit harsh on the Twins. They were more or less competitive for a decade and then had a season from hell in 2011 when injuries destroyed them (only three players had more than 370 at-bats for the team). Ryan more or less gave it one more shot with the same group in 2012 and then started the rebuild. They were in full rebuild mode in 2013-2014 and competitive in 2015 (in the WC hunt to the last series of the year). That's not that long of a rebuild for this market size. 2016 was the crazy season.

[Otto von Ballpark]

LaVelle wrote an article in the Strib. I've cited it several times previously.

Then it shouldn't be too hard for you to cite again.

 

Seriously, I have never read that TR was "in charge" of IFA during those years. This article, for example, talks to a lot of Twins front office folks about the Sano signing and paints a very different picture -- that the culture previously established by Terry Ryan was very evident (and was even cited by Sano's agent), but TR himself was not involved in process, either in targeting the player, securing the financial commitment from ownership, or actually finalizing the contract:

 

http://www.1500espn.com/twins-2/2015/09/the-story-of-how-the-twins-landed-top-prospect-miguel-sano/

[old nurse]

 

Cutting dead weight seemed to be a painful exercise for TR, one to be avoided or put off until tomorrow. But what about this.... How about during the Ryan rebuilding phase of just ONE trade in moving a significant veteran at peak value?

 

Major aspect of failure during the previous regime that would have accelerated the Twins much sooner out of this (mostly) lost decade.

Peak value is in the eye of the beholder. What you deem as peak is far different than others. He traded 2 CF. He did not trade an outfielder with an injury history, poor defense and 2 years left on a contract. Hmmm. No one was surprised when the last year played out how it did. He did not trade Plouffe who had one year of what you would call production. He got peak value for Doumit.  It took another trade but he got peak value for Drew Butera.  In his rebuilding phase he really only had 2 significan veterans, Span and Mauer. Mauer had a no trade clause.

[markos]

 

Name one mid-market team. 

Challenge accepted...

 

By my own definitions, I decided that there have been 4 other mid-market teams that have recently gone through a rebuilding cycle: Oakland (2006-2012), Cleveland (2007-2013), Diamondbacks (2011-2017) and Milwaukee (2011-2017). By all of the metrics laid out below, I think it is fair to say that all four completed their rebuilds faster and with less overall losing than the Twins.

 

# of seasons between playoff births:
Twins - 6 (2010-2017)
A's - 5 (2006-2012)
Indians - 5 (2007-2013)
Diamondbacks - 5 (2011-2017)
Brewers - 5 (2011-2017) <- including because they won more games than the Twins last year even though they didn't make the playoffs.

 

total # of losing seasons between playoff births:
Twins - 5 (2011-2014,2016)
A's - 4 (2008-2009,2011)
Indians - 4 (2009-2012)
Diamondbacks - 3 (2014-2016)
Brewers - 3 (2013,2015-2016)

 

largest # of consecutive <.500 seasons
Twins - 4 (2011-2014)
A's - 3 (2007-2009)
Indians - 4 (2009-2012)
Diamondbacks - 3 (2014-2016)
Brewers - 2 (2015-2016)

 

total # of <70-win seasons
Twins - 4 (2011-2014)
A's - 0
Indians - 3 (2009-2010,2012)
Diamondbacks - 2 (2014,2016)
Brewers - 1 (2015)

 

[Doomtints]

 

TR was the architect of one of the fastest rebuilds of any mid-market team.

 

When was this?

[Brandon]

Terry Ryan never had a 130 million budget.  I liked Terry Ryan as a GM and I would be fine with him still at the helm.  These new guys ended up with a nice offseason cause no one signed until spring training.  I am happy with both.  I am still upset about the Yu Darvish thing as they made it sound like they had a competetive offer but got beat out by the Cubs.  I just wanted to see the Twins make a splash like that just to get that out of the way so we don't have to hear about how we don't spend anymore.  

[ashbury]

When Lance Lynn was signed, I found it necessary to remind posters "this is not a Terry Ryan thread". I was inclined toward going ahead and starting such a thread, but was a little short on time.

 

Deduno Abides's thread-starter here managed to encapsulate approximately what I would have said, had I done so.

 

For context, I was a long-time supporter of Ryan, who felt about a year before he left it was time for him to go.

 

This has been an unusual off-season, to put it mildly, with various useful players languishing on the open market even past the opening of Spring Training. Early estimates of contract values were regularly being under-achieved. It was the off-season that Terry Ryan was born to thrive in, and it's his bad luck that he didn't get the opportunity. Lowball offers were his stock in trade, and he likely would have succeeded in obtaining several useful players.

 

I am very happy with the job our FO has done this time. Next off-season will likely be a different beast, and it remains to be seen what they will accomplish in a seller's market, if that's how it plays out. So far, so good, and the jury's still out. For many reasons, judging a FO takes a long time.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

 

Terry Ryan never had a 130 million budget.  I liked Terry Ryan as a GM and I would be fine with him still at the helm.  These new guys ended up with a nice offseason cause no one signed until spring training.  I am happy with both.  I am still upset about the Yu Darvish thing as they made it sound like they had a competetive offer but got beat out by the Cubs.  I just wanted to see the Twins make a splash like that just to get that out of the way so we don't have to hear about how we don't spend anymore.  

130 mil is relative to revenue and the total market. We won't know how much tis is relative to other teams for a couple weeks yet as the season has yet to begin, but at what looks to be roughly 52% of projected revenue Ryan and Smith both had budgets that were comparable in terms of MLB rank and % of revenue. The 51-52% number has not really changed in 10+ years and have been middle of the pack by rank several times.

 

 

[howieramone2]

 

Then it shouldn't be too hard for you to cite again.

Seriously, I have never read that TR was "in charge" of IFA during those years. This article, for example, talks to a lot of Twins front office folks about the Sano signing and paints a very different picture -- that the culture previously established by Terry Ryan was very evident (and was even cited by Sano's agent), but TR himself was not involved in process, either in targeting the player, securing the financial commitment from ownership, or actually finalizing the contract:

http://www.1500espn.com/twins-2/2015/09/the-story-of-how-the-twins-landed-top-prospect-miguel-sano/

LaVelle wrote the article in May or June. The crux of the article was all of our current stars are TR guys. He specifically mentioned Sano and Kepler. LaVelle always leaves contact information, so feel free to contact him. I know I'm not the only member of the board that reads the sports page.

[Twins33]

LaVelle wrote the article in May or June. The crux of the article was all of our current stars are TR guys. He specifically mentioned Sano and Kepler. LaVelle always leaves contact information, so feel free to contact him. I know I'm not the only member of the board that reads the sports page.

I was interested too so I started googling. Are you sure it was LaVelle?

 

I see this from Souhan: http://www.startribune.com/new-twins-regime-can-only-take-so-much-credit-for-2017-success/434397623/

 

And this from Sid: http://www.startribune.com/twins-foundation-was-laid-by-terry-ryan/444565183/

 

Can't find one from LaVelle and I don't see any words in the above where it specifically says Ryan was in charge of the IFA.

[howieramone2]

 

Challenge accepted...

 

By my own definitions, I decided that there have been 4 other mid-market teams that have recently gone through a rebuilding cycle: Oakland (2006-2012), Cleveland (2007-2013), Diamondbacks (2011-2017) and Milwaukee (2011-2017). By all of the metrics laid out below, I think it is fair to say that all four completed their rebuilds faster and with less overall losing than the Twins.

 

# of seasons between playoff births:
Twins - 6 (2010-2017)
A's - 5 (2006-2012)
Indians - 5 (2007-2013)
Diamondbacks - 5 (2011-2017)
Brewers - 5 (2011-2017) <- including because they won more games than the Twins last year even though they didn't make the playoffs.

 

total # of losing seasons between playoff births:
Twins - 5 (2011-2014,2016)
A's - 4 (2008-2009,2011)
Indians - 4 (2009-2012)
Diamondbacks - 3 (2014-2016)
Brewers - 3 (2013,2015-2016)

 

largest # of consecutive <.500 seasons
Twins - 4 (2011-2014)
A's - 3 (2007-2009)
Indians - 4 (2009-2012)
Diamondbacks - 3 (2014-2016)
Brewers - 2 (2015-2016)

 

total # of <70-win seasons
Twins - 4 (2011-2014)
A's - 0
Indians - 3 (2009-2010,2012)
Diamondbacks - 2 (2014,2016)
Brewers - 1 (2015)

My definition is a complete rebuild from tear down to the play-offs. If there is no tear down, you're comparing apples to oranges. 

[tarheeltwinsfan]

I don't know if Ryan would have gotten Lynn, LoMo, Odorizzi, Rodney, Duke, and Reed at the impressively low costs which Falvey and Levine got them...however I  do know of 29 other teams which didn't get them.

[howieramone2]

 

I was interested too so I started googling. Are you sure it was LaVelle?

I see this from Souhan: http://www.startribune.com/new-twins-regime-can-only-take-so-much-credit-for-2017-success/434397623/

And this from Sid: http://www.startribune.com/twins-foundation-was-laid-by-terry-ryan/444565183/

Can't find one from LaVelle and I don't see any words in the above where it specifically says Ryan was in charge of the IFA.

Feel free to contact LaVelle. He always leaves contact info. Once again, I'm not the only member who reads the sports page.

[tarheeltwinsfan]

 

Ehh, I'd argue Rodney and Sanchez are scrap heap guys.

The season hasn't started yet...and where is Sanchez?

[USAFChief]

 

Feel free to contact LaVelle. He always leaves contact info. Once again, I'm not the only member who reads the sports page.

There are no rules about this, but common courtesy seems to demand if you're going to refer to an article as proof of your claim, you should be the one providing a link.  

 

 

[howieramone2]

 

There are no rules about this, but common courtesy seems to demand if you're going to refer to an article as proof of your claim, you should be the one providing a link.  

I don't do any research or look up anything on this board, everything is off the top of my head. I save research etc., for the Gopher boards. I told them where to look, if they choose not to, no big deal.

[Otto von Ballpark]

LaVelle wrote the article in May or June. The crux of the article was all of our current stars are TR guys. He specifically mentioned Sano and Kepler. LaVelle always leaves contact information, so feel free to contact him. I know I'm not the only member of the board that reads the sports page.

They are "TR guys" in the sense they are not Falvey/Levine guys. TR was at the helm for much of their development. Doesn't mean TR was in charge of Twins IFA when they were signed in 2009, as you claimed -- a fact which, if true, would undoubtedly have been reported in more places than a single Lavelle Neal article in 2017.

 

I actually did a Google search and could not find your article. I did however find this Reusse piece from May 2017 which seems to directly contradict your claim:

http://m.startribune.com/twins-international-signings-have-paid-off-nishioka-notwithstanding/424686453/

 

Another one from Feb. 2016, "How the Twins Found Miguel Sano" -- no mention of TR, except in reference to their failed attempt to sign Miguel Cabrera years earlier:

http://m.startribune.com/how-the-twins-found-miguel-sano/368707081/

[Twins33]

I don't do any research or look up anything on this board, everything is off the top of my head. I save research etc., for the Gopher boards. I told them where to look, if they choose not to, no big deal.

The issue is that two of us have looked and the article doesn't appear to exist at all. I can google LaVelle and Terry Ryan and pull up articles involving the two all the way back to 2015, but one supposedly from 2017 can't be found is very odd.

 

Could I talk to LaVelle, sure, but you're the one making this claim. It's actually your job to prove it, not ours. That's just how it goes. Not attacking you by the way.

 

I read every free Twins article out there daily and always have. I don't remember anyone ever saying that. That doesn't mean it didn't happen, which is why I'd like to read the article if it does exist. Maybe I've just forgotten this piece of information.

 

Am I so desperate that I'm going to contact LaVelle for such a thing? No, and because of that and the fact that I and another person can't find it leads me to believe that it doesn't exist. That can easily be changed if you can provide a link to it. If you don't want to, it's not like you have to. I just won't believe it until that happens.

[snepp]

The onus should always on the person making an unsubstantiated / unsupported claim.

 

Making a proclamation of fact, then playing the "prove me wrong" card without providing any support oneself, is frankly, wrong.

 

If it's no big deal, then there shouldn't be any problems acquiescing when a supported counter point is provided.

[Thrylos]

 

My definition is a complete rebuild from tear down to the play-offs. If there is no tear down, you're comparing apples to oranges. 

 

What happens though when you take a 2-time world champion and you lead it to the tear down and possible contraction?  Why should Ryan take a mulligan for his failures in the 90s or even be praised for the "nearly good enoughs" in the 00s?